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Thursday, 23 October 2008

UP IN OUR CORNER of Scotland where the clouds are almost within reach, we are being buffeted and blown, whipped by the tails of gales and peppered with ices and hails. Even a flurry of snow happened upon us the other day. It is freezing and wet and the shortlived warm autumn colours are being blown off their branches and lay sludged at the roadside in a brown puddled patchwork.

I have just finished a small commissioned watercolour painting of a crow, sitting up in winter branches overlooking a small hamlet in the hills where a chimney smokes and reminds him of the origins of fire. This painting is for Melanie who loved the Lenape legend of the rainbow crow and the smoking chimney is a remnant of the fire in this tale. I delved into my lovely brand new box of watercolours for this painting and used a smidgen of gouache for the snow on the branches.As he is packaged up and readied for a trip to the post office (a windy six mile journey for us) I am stacking books upstairs into "going", "staying" and "mum and dad's house" piles... there's rather a lot to fit into our compact little rolling home.

The other day I bought a tiny locally grown pumpkin which we roasted in the oven, and after we'd eaten it we curled up to watch a lovely film which we had already seen at the cinema, but wanted to see again. It is a Gaelic film, a tale of a grandfather on the isle of Skye and of the tales that he tells to his grandchildren, and of the mystery in the seas and trees of the island. It is a beautiful film, all spoken in Gaelic using unknown actors and painted sonically with a haunting musical score. Here's the trailer... I highly recommend you buy it, download it, enjoy it. It's called SEACHD: The Inaccessible Pinnacle.

Wishing you all warm ends of Octobers with no draughts blowing down the gaps ..

40 comments:

Oh, I love this Rima! It's a little "Rackhamnesque", istn't it? Beautiful! You know, where I live now there are crows all over the place and I've been drawing some lately, I need to post some sketches. They remind me of England so much!

Ooh, that one's really lovely. I used to see crows all the time where I worked in California, and now here in Idaho too. And one of my favorite magical authors, Charles DeLint, has some recurring characters called the Crow Girls, who are sometimes human sometimes crow.

I am absolutely entranced by your enchanted world! Also, love the play on Treescapes and Seasons...your work is amazing and awesome and there just aren't enough words to describe your special brand of magic!

I shall definitely be searching this film out to watch! I love anything with a gaelic/celtic feel to it. Have you ever seen 'Into the West' An irish film about two boys, their father a traveller gypsy and a white horse? (I love that film)

here in the upper north of the US it is blustery and wet and cold as well. i am eager for our first snow, but inside is cosy and warm and just as i like it!the crows here are making themselves known, as they wave goodbye to the geese winging their way south...thinking of you as i take my tea from my new "hermitage series" mug!

You always manage to catch a kind of wonderous mystery and enchantment in your paintings. You have a way of illustrating those things that cannot always be said, but felt, somewhere in the deep down. Indeed, I love your work.

Sounds dismal and cold in your corner of Scotland.But the bird picture is lovely.Here in New York it is warm but with wild wet weather like at the beginning of Porphria's Lover"The rain set early in tonight........

What a lovely painting Rima ... pity it was a comission and not for sale. My boyfriend and I both love crows and this painting brings to mind memories of being in the countryside and having a crow almost watching over us ...

What a lovely painting Rima ... pity it was a comission and not for sale. My boyfriend and I both love crows and this painting brings to mind memories of being in the countryside and having a crow almost watching over us ...

Magnificent snow crow-- it captures Winter perfectly-- & lovely musings on the season. I don't do Winter well myself... I miss gardening & dread feeling cold all the time. The only saving grace is the fireplace... we had our first fire last night & hot mulled cider spiked with rum... maybe I'll survive!

About Me

Rima Staines is an artist using paint, wood, word, music, animation, clock-making, puppetry & story to attempt to build a gate through the hedge that grows along the boundary between this world & that. Her gate-building has been a lifelong pursuit, & she hopes to have perhaps propped aside even one spiked loop of bramble (leaving a chink just big enough for a mud-kneeling, trusting eye to glimpse the beauty there beyond), before she goes through herself.

Always stubborn about living the things that make her heart sing, Rima lives with her partner Tom and their young son in Hedgespoken - an offgrid home and travelling theatre built on a vintage Bedford RL truck.

Rima’s inspirations include the world & language of folktale; faces of people who pass her on the street; folk music & art of Old Europe & beyond; peasant & nomadic living; magics of every feather; wilderness & plant-lore; the margins of thought, experience, community & spirituality; & the beauty in otherness.

Crumbs fall from Rima’s threadbare coat pockets as she travels, & can be found collected here, where you may join the caravan.